[SP Campaign] M.E.R.C.S. - mercenary expendable ruthless covert selfish

[PaterPruts 13]

Thx for the answer. Really nice job so far. (I'm not far yet :)) but I love it. Thumbs up

[IndeedPete 1038]

No problem, glad you like it. If you don't like the effects you can turn them off permanently using your TacPad, there's a button for that particular purpose.

[Raptorstzx 10]

I've been playing this mission for a while and I really have to say: Awesome job man! Thanks for your effort to make this game better. Without these missions/mods the game would be dead by now.

Looking forward for the future updates. Keep up the good work! :)

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thank you, glad to hear you enjoy it! The next update is in the pipe, I actually wanted to have published it by last weekend. Last major thing to do is integrating the generic missions into the second hub. I hope I can make version 1.00 this week.^^

[PaterPruts 13]

I tried to find an answer in on the last pages but nothing said about a bug in the "car chasing" mission. I can't retrieve the money.. When I chase down the car there is one guy in (driver) and he doesn't have the money. The other guy stays at the stadium but he also does not have the money. I guess something is going wrong there? .. where should i retrieve de money from, the guys? or is it in the car? And if the car arrives at the destignation, shout the mission fail? ... because it doesn't. The driver stays in the car with the engine running but I can't find any money nowhere around (afhter killing them all)...

[IndeedPete 1038]

The guy who says there shouldn't do that but it seems to be a bug in the latest version. Once he's dead he should have an action to retrieve the ransom on him.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good evening! Happy to finally release version 1.00. This update contains a set of fixes and tweaks. There might be further addon support and some more generic stuff in the future. Though I'm short on time and motivation for this project (too many new projects requiring my attention) so I thought I'd finally push out the necessary update before even more time passes by. Enjoy! ;)

Changelog

1.00 - 18.01.2015

• FIXED: Glass System wouldn't work after reload.
  
• FIXED: Glass System could see through terrain.
  
• FIXED: Home Sweet Home, Glass System was still active after returning to the hub from freeroaming.
  
• FIXED: Meet And Greet, Some faction representatives opened fire on the player's quad bike.
  
• FIXED: Helo insertions in the second half of the campaign didn't work because of Helicopter DLC changes.
  
• FIXED: Ransom Demand, the thief should now stay in the car.
  
• CHANGED: New textures for EUROFORCE units.
  
• CHANGED: Brave New World, Disabled saving to avoid mission flow stuck on loading.
  
• CHANGED: Diplomatic Incident, Lowered seizable trigger area for second mission objective.
  
• CHANGED: Smash And Grab, Lowered to-clear trigger areas.
  
• CHANGED: Hostage Down, hostage must now be alive and within 750 metres of the helicopter on extraction to be considered survived.
  
• ADDED: Shop System, camo versions of the vanilla sniper rifles.
  
• ADDED: Shop System, vanilla 3GL ammo (HE + Smoke).
  

Known Issues

• Developer console is enabled. In case you encounter a game breaker you can always execute [] call IP_fnc_cheatEndMission; It will automatically determine and load the next logical mission.
  
• The use of DevBranch or mods may impact playability, especially AI driving skills are fundamental to make some missions work. I recommend to run this campaign in stable branch! (Tested with Arma 3 v1.18)
  
• Home Sweet Home: The ambient shooter at the range sometimes shoots the bystanders. This is caused by a messed up aiming AI which constantly drifts away from the assigned target.
  
• Home Sweet Home: The gambler mentions BlackJack as possible gamble but it is not implemented yet.
  
• Ransom Demand: The fleeing car might be crashing against something or the passengers disembark randomly and walk instead. I'm researching ways to rebuild this mission.
  
• Checkpoint Charlie: The incoming cars sometimes crash into or stuck at the bar gate. If they can't continue they get deleted sometimes which breaks the mission flow.
  
• Very Important Pickup: Performance might suffer under many ambient AI units.
  
• Riot Control: Performance might suffer under many ambient AI units.
  
• Panzerfaust: There's always one AI from the player's group stucking at the briefing desk. Sometimes he follows after a few regroup commands. In case he doesn't, step away from the table and type into the debug console: {_x setPos (getPos player)} forEach (units group player);
  
• Panzerfaust: Other parts of the battle group go funny ways.
  
• Glass System: Usage in an environment with lots of objects might affect performance. I recommend turning down the core functions first.
  

Development Roadmap - Scopes & Features

Alpha (RETIRED):

• 1 Intro Mission
  
• 1 Hub Mission
  
• 5 Contract Missions
  
• 1 Ending
  

Beta (RETIRED):

• Campaign Completed
  
• 1 Intro Mission
  
• 3 Hub Missions
  
• 22 Contract Missions
  
• 8 Endings / 11 Variations
  
• Advanced Shop System (Vehicles & Camp Enhancements)
  

Gold (RELEASED):

• Voice Acting (CANCELED)
  
• Mod Compability (ONGOING)
  
• Generic Side Missions (OPTIONAL)
  

Contact

You can reach me on the BI-Forums: http://forums.bistudio.com/member.php?53386-IndeedPete

Or feel free to add me on steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/IndeedPete/

License

Content created by IndeedPete is published under the "Arma Public License Share Alike (APL-SA)". You are free to take or change anything you can use, just give me a mention in the credits.

All authors of third party content gave me permissions to use their works in the MANW Contest.

Credits & Thanks

• Bohemia Interactive Studios for this great game!
  
• aeroson for his get/set loadout and repetitive clean up scripts!
  
• cobra4v320 for his HALO/parachuting scripts!
  
• Kydoimos for cross-reading and improving some of the dialogues and texts!
  
• mrflay for his explosion detector!
  
• Shuko for his SHKPos script!
  
• Surfer for his help regarding the awesome M.E.R.C.S. logo and way too many textures and images!
  
• tpw for his ambient civilian script package!
  
• And all the great people on the BI-Forums who helped out with answers and feedback to so many questions!

Download

Addon Version

Dropbox v1.00

Steam Workshop v1.00

Campaign PBO Version

Dropbox v1.00

[Wiki 1558]

Hi Pete, thanks for the update.

What is this glass system you're talking about?

[orcinus 121]

Good evening! Happy to finally release version 1.00. This update contains a set of fixes and tweaks. There might be further addon support and some more generic stuff in the future. Though I'm short on time and motivation for this project (too many new projects requiring my attention) so I thought I'd finally push out the necessary update before even more time passes by. Enjoy! ;)

Cheers, hope to be able to play this through soon.

Thanks, mate.

[IndeedPete 1038]

@Wiki: That's my interpretation of actually using the tactical glasses, named after the famous Google product. I admit, it is a somewhat hidden feature but if you buy or find yourself a pair of Tactical Glasses or Tactical Shades you're able to activate some GUI functions via TacPad during a mission. Functionality is captured in these two vids:

[Wiki 1558]

Oh, ok.

I bought them, but didn't understand why they were so expensive.

Didn't know I could activate them through the TacPad.

[miller 49]

Thanks IndeedPete great

ArmA3.de Mirror updated:

M.E.R.C.S. - mercenary expendable ruthless covert selfish (v1.00) by IndeedPete

Kind regards

Miller

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thank you, Armaholic has been updated as well! I'll add both of you to the first page.

[germ 10]

Would be nice if you added AGM support, I'm stuck on the surfing mission. Because I can't attach a satchel to the boat due to using AGM. So my only option is to exit Arma, remove AGM, and then replay the entire mission. Which I refuse to do. And more weapon addon support, seeing the same weapons over and over is boring. CUP, MASSI, RHS, DM, mkmod18, R3F, STI. More gear/uniforms would be nice too.

Edited January 21, 2015 by germ

[Jona33 51]

Would be nice if you added AGM support, I'm stuck on the surfing mission. Because I can't attach a satchel to the boat due to using AGM. So my only option is to exit Arma, remove AGM, and then replay the entire mission. Which I refuse to do.

You'd have to do that anyway, even if AGM support was added in an update. However it's not a default option, it's a scripted addAction so AGM shouldn't affect it. Surely AGM doesn't remove that too.

[IndeedPete 1038]

I have no idea what AGM is.^^ But if you don't see the action make sure you have a demo or satchel charge with you. Otherwise it won't show up. In case you missed to bring one there's also an AAF exlosive specialist lurking around in the AAF outpost at the harbour.

The supported weapon packages add quiet a lot of guns, shop's bursting if they're all active. Because it's such an annoying and time costly task to index new items I have decided to not explicitly do that until I need it for another project. Or decide to give the shop a general overhaul. In any case when the shop's updated, M.E.R.C.S. gets the new stuff as well. Next on my list will most likely be toadie's MP5 pack, I think it's not in there already. I can add the packages you've mentioned to my list but I won't be able to implement that stuff anytime soon.

To be honest with version 1.00 M.E.R.C.S. is basically concluded. I will of course continue fixing stuff that gets affected by official patches or tweak where possible. Other than that if I develop something for another project that might be useful here as well I'll most likely implement it. Already have a generic side-mission generator staged but I'm awaiting further testing results before I start adapting it to this scenario.

[germ 10]

AGM is a complete gameplay overhaul, it changes practically every aspect of the game. Kind like ACE for previous Arma titles. It completely changes the way the game handles explosives, so your action menu "place satchel" doesn't work. It says you need a satchel or something along those lines even though I have one in my inventory.

It does the same thing in the BIS campaign, because AGM alters the satchel items, adds items and completely removes explosives from the action menu. The mod has it's own interaction menu you use. And that's sad to hear about your stance on adding support for more weapon mods, because I disagree. The shop is not full, and I have all the addons that are supported. The thing is they all add the same type of firearms, and none of them add any SMG's, pistols or launchers.

(edit)

I can place satchels through AGM's interaction menu, and det them but it has no effect. Since the trigger is tied to your action menu, and not the actual destruction of the ship. Same thing in the BIS campaign probably. And I much prefer the ar's in the DM weapons pack and the mk18's over RH's m4 pack, they're much better quality and more varied.(RHS weapons are best overall, would rather have those than anything mentioned) And CUP adds in hundreds of weapons, which would be nice. I like variety.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?178253-Authentic-Gameplay-Modification

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?156804-MK18-Mod-1

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=20798

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?186146-Community-Upgrade-Project-Weapon-Pack

DM mastery m4a1's

http://i.imgur.com/2rb9pqD.jpg (136 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/AcPXIvD.jpg (122 kB)

THey come in 10 different camo patterns per variant(m4/m4a1/m16) Plus accessories

AGM interaction menu

http://i.imgur.com/p8SGPhl.jpg (132 kB)

Edited January 22, 2015 by germ
Stuff

[IndeedPete 1038]

I liked ACE back then, I should take a look into AGM. However, if it breaks so much official and user generated stuff I can't really make use of it in the long run. The action and destruction are custom ones because - as to my knowledge - you can't sink a ship with just detonating charges next to it.

I feel the shop needs proper sub-categorisation first. It's a design mistake I've made, the more stuff I add the more you need to scroll which is pretty annoying. A hard-coded categorisation and a search / filter function would be great. Right now weapons are loosely sorted by type and calibre. And you said it yourself: Hundreds of weapons! The process of integrating a weapon into the shop is whitelisting it with an additional config entry to determine the price. That means a ton of really ugly copy-paste work. Plus my colleagues from the modding department are often a bit lazy when it comes to proper documentation of their classnames. Lists are outdated or just show classnames, means I have no idea which weapon this particular classname represents. Then I usually have to look up additional info about the weapon to put it in the right place and so on. I'm not saying I won't add more, just not in the next few days.

[bolo861 166]

I feel the shop needs proper sub-categorisation first. It's a design mistake I've made, the more stuff I add the more you need to scroll which is pretty annoying. A hard-coded categorisation and a search / filter function would be great. Right now weapons are loosely sorted by type and calibre. And you said it yourself: Hundreds of weapons! The process of integrating a weapon into the shop is whitelisting it with an additional config entry to determine the price. That means a ton of really ugly copy-paste work. Plus my colleagues from the modding department are often a bit lazy when it comes to proper documentation of their classnames. Lists are outdated or just show classnames, means I have no idea which weapon this particular classname represents. Then I usually have to look up additional info about the weapon to put it in the right place and so on. I'm not saying I won't add more, just not in the next few days.

Hello @IndeedPete I actually added for my personal use shop support for tens of addons (massi, new hlc s, RHARD MK18, proper EMU PMC uniforms and vests, NIKOs Uniforms etc) If You wont I can PM You the moded config files.

Regards.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Ah, that would be awesome, thanks!

[bolo861 166]

Ah, that would be awesome, thanks!

OK I will send it this evening when I ll be back home from work with list of what I added, configs are from 0.94 but it works in 1.0

I put stuff in its correct category in shop with its attachments, magazines, uniforms sometimes with its custom descriptions etc. I don t recommend players to play the campaign with all this mods enabled the volume of custom stuff is insane but works fine and is playable (lots of weapon magazines I miss JAM).

Next I am planning to incorporate CUP weapons mod when I have time.

I ve done this for my personal use but I am OK if IndeedPete decides to incorporate this or some of this in official build.

I also substituted mercs in the shop with EMU units to get the proper PMC feel.

I also have back up config for EMU vehicles (mercs Little Birds, Offroads, and Quads, Hammer H3) but I didn t test it and I don t know how @IndeedPete missions handle vehicles so I am afraid that it could work but also it could break the campaign.

Regards.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Bolo861

[IndeedPete 1038]

Huge thanks, be sure your efforts are appreciated! I haven't changed how the configs are structured but I most likely will at some point to enable proper categorisation.

[PaterPruts 13]

I can't get past the "Riot" mission. I dissabled all the mods exept Jsrs Dragonfyre, stamina bar and vts weaponresting and started the mission over but it got stuck at defending the town. The mission won't end! I defended the town, put a lot of FIA down and then I checked all the houses and even doors next to the red rectangle to see if somewone got stuck or something but I can't find nobody, still the mission won't end! Is this known? Or is there a way to bypass stuck missions? "endmission" does not work for your campaign.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Yes, sadly that's a common AI bug. The attackers sometimes don't push forward and thus the player must search for them. Since the debug console is still enabled I'd suggest to execute the following piece of code:

{if (side _x == east) then {_x setDamage 1}} forEach allUnits;

That should get rid of any stragglers.

[PaterPruts 13]

Yes, sadly that's a common AI bug. The attackers sometimes don't push forward and thus the player must search for them. Since the debug console is still enabled I'd suggest to execute the following piece of code:

{if (side _x == east) then {_x setDamage 1}} forEach allUnits;

That should get rid of any stragglers.

Thank you.